


Undercover 101

by In_Dee



Category: NCIS: Los Angeles
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 08:16:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18616729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/In_Dee/pseuds/In_Dee
Summary: Just a bit of an introduction to what it takes to be an undercover agent. All in good fun.





	Undercover 101

Callen laughed at Sam’s groan, “come on, Sam. It’s not gonna be that bad. Actually, it will be a lot of fun.”

Sam sighed and shook his head, “G. _You_ are the one they call ‘ghost’. Actually it should go against everything in _you_ to stand in front of a class and _get noticed_.”

He arched an eyebrow at his partner. “Who said anything about noticing me?”

That had just been the start of it a few years ago. Admittedly, by now, Sam also found a lot of entertainment in this class that Callen and he taught at a semi-regular basis when their case load allowed it. He definitely hadn’t been sold on the idea that first time - had actually argued (unsuccessfully) with both Callen and Hetty about it - but ever since then, he had wizened up and it turned out that it was always fun and no two courses were identical.

He also admitted to himself that he enjoyed watching his partner in doing what he did best in a situation where no one could get hurt, liked seeing the sometimes childish delight that Callen got out of this. Don’t get him wrong: his partner was taking this course more than seriously, knowing that it was the skills they taught that could make the difference between a young agent remaining alive or being killed, but G also simply _enjoyed_ himself in this course.

At first, he had been nervous about this, but the students were made to sign a confidentiality waiver for this class so their identities couldn’t be compromised. While it technically didn’t apply to the course content, Callen and he always made sure to ask the students to also keep their schemes to themselves, so they could keep surprising future students the way they did. They’d done a lot of schemes over the years, trying to keep them original to make the course lively and interesting.

Xxxxxxx

Sam watched the students enter the room, watched as two stragglers came in somewhat late, the man holding the door open for the woman to slip past him. Sam arched an eyebrow at the two, then glanced meaningfully at the clock. The man offered a - somewhat insincere - “sorry”, before they both sank down in their seats.

“Welcome everyone. Now that we are complete, we can start. My name is Sam Hanna and I’ll be your instructor.”

A young woman on the left side of the room raised her arm. He gave her a nod and tilted his head to the side in a silent question. “Excuse me, Sir. This course was supposed to be taught by two instructors.”

Sam nodded simply, “very true. We’ll get to that in a bit. It seems my partner was late today. But don’t worry, he’ll come around and introduce himself.” He briefly turned to the whiteboards that had been set up before leaning against the desk behind him. “Do any of you have any previous experience with undercover work?” he asked. There were some negative murmurs and some people were shaking their heads. “Anyone with theater experience? School plays?” Three people raised their hands, making Sam nod his head slowly. He needed to gauge what previous experience they had to decide where to start. He also needed to see what they could do and also get a feeling for what they would be willing to do in the future. He had already pegged three people as former military, one more as possibly being from a family with a tradition in law enforcement. The other four remaining students were more difficult to get a read on. He wondered what his partner would be able to add when they compared notes later on.

“Ok, let’s start with the basics. What is undercover work about?” Sam asked into the room, opening the stage to get some rapport started.

An hour later, they had covered some of the basics, bullet points had been added to the boards behind him about what undercover work was about by definition and then some more that had been gained by personal experience. Sam glanced at the clock in the corner of the room. “Let’s take a short break before we go into this in more detail,” he suggested, watching as the man who had come in late instantly stood, moving through the row of chairs with a muttered “excuse me” or two.

„Will your partner join us after the break?” one of the military looking young men asked, appearing somewhat put out by the supposed tardiness of one of their tutors.

Sam smirked at him and then raised an eyebrow. “Who says he hasn’t been in this room for the last hour?” he gave back, meaningfully raising his eyes to the man who had stood up as soon as he had announced the break and who was now slipping out of the room without turning back.

All heads swiveled round, too late to get an impression of the man, barely able to get a glance of faded blue jeans and a beige jacket before the door closed behind him.

Sam watched their students for a few more moments before recalling their attention. “Can anyone give me a description of the man? Any details?”

He didn’t need to be closer to the students to hear them muttering quietly among each other and to themselves. He pointed at a young man in a silent prompt. “He sat right beside me,” the young man shook his head self-deprecatingly, “he even asked me what time it was, but I didn’t pay any attention to him.”

A young woman glanced up somewhat shyly, “white male, blond short-cropped hair, maybe mid-thirties and he had blue eyes.”

Sam stifled a short laugh at that because he had seen his partner subtly flirting with that woman earlier. And again, Callen’s baby-blues had made an impression. Obviously, it was the most striking impression he had left the woman with.

“He was courteous; held open the door for me when we came inside,” another young woman piped up.

Sam nodded and then leaned back against the desk. “That’s all?” he asked, glancing around the room once more, seeing several students shake their head, “yeah, that would be all you got from him. You’re all trained as agents to take in details, but he has a special talent to remain under the radar. They don’t call him the ‘ghost’ for nothing. Unless he got someone’s attention _intentionally_ ,” and here he glanced at the three agents who had had any interaction with Callen, “none of you would have noticed his presence at all. And none of you would have pegged him for anything other than a fellow student.” He watched as several agents slip lower in their seats in something close to shame. “ _That_ ladies and gentlemen, is what makes a good undercover agent.”

“It’s about hiding in plain sight,” Callen’s voice came from the right side of the room - the other side from where he had left the lecture room - and a young man jumped about a foot high when he saw the agent calmly seated next to him, not having taken notice of his reappearance. Granted, the others looked just as shocked.

Sam allowed himself the privilege to smirk once more. He had of course seen his partner slip back into the room, but hadn’t called any attention to it, had instead kept his focus on the students in front of him and not on his partner creeping back down and employing a lot of Hetty-like stealth.

“Welcome to ‘Undercover 101’,” Sam grinned, catching his partner’s eyes who was grinning back somewhat gleefully. Yeah, his partner was enjoying himself immensely.

Xxxxxxx

Callen watched from his position as the room filled up again after the short break. He smiled to himself when he noticed that their pupils seemed more interested than before. Usually, their demonstrations worked that way. They didn’t teach boring theory here, but more applied science that made people sit up and take notice. They would put people through the theory, but also demonstrate a lot of things and get some practice in for the agents.

He wouldn’t have guessed before, but it was fun to do these courses. He had done his first course on his own before his partnership with Sam - when he had been between agencies and no one knew what to do with him - and he had found he liked it a lot. Sam had been very hesitant at first, had argued and hemmed and hawed before finally getting the point that there was no getting out of this. By now, he knew that Sam enjoyed these things as well, even if he continued to unconvincingly grouse about it.

Teaching this course had the added benefit that they could keep an eye on the new hopefuls and give Hetty a heads up if they saw something - or someone - they liked. They had snagged up an agent or two for OSP over the years this way (or rather by confirming Hetty’s previous research and secret head-hunting with first hand impressions from the course).

When everyone was seated, Callen glanced around, instantly commandeering the attention of everyone just with that subtle shift of his head. “You’ve met my partner already. I’m Agent Callen and together we’ll give you an introduction into some aspects of undercover work. A lot of it can’t be taught, but is simply something you will either be able to do or not. There’s no shame in finding out you don’t have what it takes to do undercover work or finding out you actually _don’t want to risk_ undercover work. It’s not for everyone.”

There was a brief pause before Sam continued. “Let’s work through Callen’s undercover stint here in this room,” Sam took up the lecture, “why did it work? What did he do? How didn’t he get noticed?”

A woman spoke up, “well, none of us know each other, so it would be easy to integrate himself into the body of students.”

Sam nodded, “somewhat true,” he agreed and glanced over to Callen.

Callen picked up the thread, “we could have gone about the introduction today a completely different way - in fact, we did with previous classes - and you still wouldn’t have known the difference between one of us as a student or an instructor or something else altogether. And yes, none of you know each other and you wouldn’t know me from another person, but that doesn’t necessarily make it easier.”

The woman picked up her argument again, “I figure it would be a lot harder to integrate yourself into a group of people who knew each other and where you would be to only unknown.”

Again, Callen nodded, “yes and no. It always depends on your target. What we did earlier was designed to make no one notice me. We could have gone the opposite way though with everyone taking notice of me, but one of you noticing me more than the others because he or she would feel connected to me - or Sam - in some way.”

They were met with several curious stares and Callen smiled mildly, “a lot of undercover work is about _knowing your mark_. You need to anticipate how your target will react, what will make him or her notice you in the way you want. Do they need a protector, do they need a facilitator, do they have a secret craving? What body language speaks to them? What makes them tick?”

“How would you get such knowledge? Would that be integrated into mission briefs?” one of the students asked.

Both Sam and Callen shook their heads. “Some things can be anticipated by knowing the background of your target, but you basically need some profiling talents to pull off most of the missions. The better you are at deciphering body language and gauging reactions, the better your chances for completing the mission and staying alive,” Sam told them frankly.

“You need to be a good judge of character,” Callen added before glancing around the room and settling his eyes on one of the men that Sam had earlier pegged as military, “for example. If you were my mark,” he pointed, waiting for the students to turn around to glance at the man, taking him in for themselves, “from your file I would probably learn you have been in the military before leaving the service for another career option. What wouldn’t be included in your files were mannerisms or other characteristics I could use to get close to you.”

The man tilted his head to the side in curiosity and something close to challenge, “what would that be?”

Callen laughed as the man had just cemented his impression. Beside him, he saw Sam smile as well. He turned towards his friend, who gave him a nod. “Let’s play this,” Callen suggested to the room, “you know each other now and you know me for who I am. I cannot ask you to ‘unknow’ that, but let’s just start again. Clear the room and come back inside upon Sam’s mark.”

It didn’t even take a minute before the room was empty, their students curious and instantly eager to learn more. Sam remained where he was while Callen went over to a seat on the far side of the room, away from where the main body of the students would be seated. He sat down and slouched in his seat, pulling up the collar of his jacket. It was a pity he didn’t have a black leather jacket with him to further complete the picture he was going for. Maybe that was something they would have to consider in the future, taking some wardrobe with them. He made a mental note to get Hetty’s approval for that.

Xxxxxxx

Sam watched as his partner sank down into the seat and pulled up his collar. No words needed to be said to know how they would play this. They had selected their mark. They had worked together long enough to understand the subtle clues of each other’s body language to know what would be their approach and to be able to play it off the cuff.

Sam waited for the frown to clear from his partner’s eyes, waited for G to give him a short nod. It was always a revelation to watch his partner work, to see how quickly he could immerse himself into a different persona. Basically, you could give G a key word or two and he would instantly transform before your very eyes. They had done that in a previous class and Sam had seen both awe in the students… and the intimidation. It was why they hadn’t done that particular demonstration again. Teaching this course was not about stroking their egos or showing off and it definitely wasn’t about intimidating their students to think they couldn’t pull off undercover work. Callen was who he was and his upbringing and heritage made him just this good, but Callen was definitely not the norm. Undercover work was difficult for most people even with experience. It usually took time to get into the mindset of who you would be.

Sam moved to the door and opened it to let the students in, a friendly smile on his lips. His own persona for this piece of demonstration hadn’t changed much yet. He remained mostly friendly, nodding to the students and offering greetings. He smiled to himself when he watched how the students hesitated entering further when they noticed Callen in his corner and the definite “fuck-off”, mean vibe coming from him. Sam returned to his position leaning against the desk as he had before.

Once everyone was seated - as far away from Callen as they could - he ‘started’ the class once more. “Welcome everyone. My name is Agent Hanna and I’ll be your instructor for this undercover course.”

There was a soft scoff coming from where his partner sat. Sam hesitated briefly before he ignored it and forged on. From the corner of his eye he saw that his partner was still slouched down, his chin tucked against his chest. He was picking imaginary dirt out from under his fingernails. At the same time, he saw the uncertain glances some of the students shot Callen, “we’ll cover some basics of undercover work and then later do some demonstrations. I’ll give you first hand experiences about what it means to be doing undercover work.”

This time the snort was more pronounced and Sam looked over sharply, but also made sure that some uncertainty was mixing with the natural irritation of a speaker being rudely interrupted. “Anything you got to say?” he asked.

Callen tilted his head up, glowering at him, his eyes dark and unfriendly, “what would you know about undercover work? You and your fancy talk. I bet you’ve never been on the streets before, doing the dirty work.”

Sam frowned, as would be expected of him, crossing and uncrossing his arms in front of his chest. “What makes you say that, Agent…” he let the words hang.

Callen grinned darkly, more baring his teeth than anything else, “you stand there, all shiny and polished shoes. Just because you didn’t don your fancy three piece suit today, pretending to be _approachable_ to your students that way, doesn’t mean you have any street creds.” The fact that he didn’t provide his name as Sam’s prompt would have demanded only added further insult to injury. Callen also barely moved, all of his movements tiny but effective in getting across what he wanted to come across. A flick of his hand here, a tilt of his head there; efficient and controlled, dangerous but leashed.

Sam shifted away from the desk, his eyes sharpening, his posture straightening in affront, “I’ll have you know…” he started, only to be interrupted rudely by his partner once more.

“Yeah, yeah. You say you know your shit. Blah, blah. Have years of experience going for you. No offense, _Sir_ ,” he said in a tone that made clear he definitely meant offense, “but I think you’re full of shit. Just look at you. No way you could be inconspicuous with that physique of yours.”

Sam hemmed and hawed appropriately, his character unused to being doubted and affronted. His eyes went nervously around the room, moving over their students, “I’m… I mean…” he rubbed a hand over the back of his head, taking a slow and deliberate breath to try and get control back, “I’m sorry you feel that way, but if you do, you don’t have to be here. I won’t force you to take this course.”

Callen laughed, a dark and unfriendly sound, “oh no, you won’t get rid of me that easily. My bosses paid good money for this course and I’ll take it and criticize your _yearlong experience_ and _superiority_ all along.”

The students watched the match volley back and forth, some of them uncomfortable and some curious. Sam noticed the speculative gleam in their target’s eyes though and gave Callen a nod. They both fell out of character simultaneously and Callen shed his mean persona like a duck shed water from its coat. His partner stood up and joined him at the front of the room once more. A hush fell over the students as they digested the scene. Hopping onto the desk and facing the students with a smile, Callen took off his jacket, further distancing himself from his previous alias for the sake of the still somewhat nervous students.

Sam gave everyone another moment to get rid of the vision of Callen’s mean asshole attitude and took over. He glanced at their target, “if we had gone like this, would you have considered approaching Callen during a break or after the course today?” he asked.

The young man wrestled with a lie before drawing a hand through his hair and nodding, offering a quiet, “yes, probably.”

Callen gave the man a small smile to set him at ease, “don’t worry, no shame in that.”

One of the students frowned and Sam gave the woman a friendly nod to encourage her to speak up, which she did after a moment of considering her words. “How did you… I mean, how did you know what approach to take?”

Again, Callen smiled, his demeanor completely different to the demonstration before, his smile friendly and open, “as we said, files can give us a background. For your companion it most certainly would have stated former military,” he paused briefly to wait for the man to nod in agreement, before he went on to explain further, his words directed to their target, “your bearing says military, but there’s a certain vibe that says you have a rebellious streak, you hate to bow to a demand you find unreasonable which may or may not have been part of why you left the armed forces. You challenged us earlier after I singled you out, which only supported that impression of a rebellious streak. So by presenting myself as someone to challenge authority, you found a common thread, something to identify yourself with. The overly brash nature of my comments would have made you curious because you rarely let yourself go that way yet and it intrigues you if someone does and made you want to get to know me.” He let the students consider this before he went on, “mind you, I could have lost you in several ways. Pushing further than the verbal comments I slung at Sam would have gone too far for you because you hold on to values and the code of honor. If I had pushed too far, our connection would have crashed and burned.”

The young man considered this and then slowly nodded, obviously coming to the same conclusion.

“But…” Callen said and watched as the students perked up again, “you all forget one more crucial part in making this work.”

He waited for another few moments, glancing around and waiting for someone to come forward. When no one did, he tilted his head towards Sam, “it takes two to tango.” He grinned and hopped off the desk to come to lean next to Sam, their shoulders touching, presenting a united front, “in both scenarios we did today, Sam was an integral part of the ruse. In our first scenario, he could have given me away with a too long glance, an overly familiar address or also when I slipped back into the room by glancing into my direction. Instead he kept your attention from me by talking. In this second scenario, he did something completely different to support me forging a connection to my target. What did he do?”

Both of them waited for someone to make the connection, not completely surprised when it was their target himself who spoke up, “you were insecure in your behavior, trying to appear superior but hinting that Agent Callen might have been right in his accusations the way you behaved.”

All of the students considered the new information silently, before once more glancing at Sam and Callen in askance and they both nodded.

“Indeed. I couldn’t have pulled my persona off this way, if Sam had presented a calm and competent instructor who knew what he was talking about. It would have been much more difficult for me to go this way to form a connection with my mark if Sam had been able to diffuse your volatile fellow student,” Callen glanced once more to their target, “Sam’s supposed incompetence would be another thing that opened you up to making a connection to me. It would be a red mark for you as I think you have come across it before and it might have gotten you or your unit into trouble. By presenting himself as insecure and possibly incompetent, Sam further set the stage for our target to fall into our web,” Callen explained in more detail before letting Sam take over once more.

“There are different ways to work undercover. It might be that you end up working alone in which case you obviously won’t have the backup I provided right now, but if you work as a team or as partners, you will have to trust that you all know what you’re doing. The better you know each other, the easier it will be to play off of each other and respond to the little cues your partner gives you,” Sam went on.

The young man that had been their mark remained silent, his focus turned inwards before he hesitantly looked up and addressed them both, “am I that transparent?”

That was always kind of a problem if they used these demonstrations: they ruffled feathers.

Callen shrugged calmly before starting to slowly pace the room, “honestly, if you have done this for as long as Sam and I have been working as undercover agents, pretty much everyone is transparent in one way or another. We probably could have picked each one of you and found a matching setting to make it work.” It sounded cynical and crass, but it was basically the truth. “Basically everyone has a weak spot, something to exploit to get close. You just have to find it.” He stopped and turned back to the class. “Once you’ve found that weak spot, you need to set the stage and find a way to use it.”

“Finding the weakness is only one part of it though,” Sam took up where Callen had left off, “just because you know what way to go doesn’t mean you will be able to pull it off.”

Callen took one of the empty chairs, turned it around and sat down. “What could prevent someone to use a certain scenario?”

“Morals,” their previous mark stated firmly.

“True, though morals are a dubious thing when you have to go deep under. This is also where some of you might hit their proverbial line in the sand… and let me reassure you that’s a good thing. Working undercover might mean you have to do things you normally wouldn’t even consider doing, things that might be morally dubious. Depending on how high the stakes are, you might be forced to go that way regardless,” Callen stated softly, the tone of voice leaving no doubt about this being personal experience.

“You will most certainly encounter a side of yourself that you didn’t know existed or that you knew was there but wouldn’t allow coming out for fear of repercussions,” Sam said, drawing the attention away from Callen for a few moments. “It might not even be a worst case scenario that’s often referred to in books or movies like killing someone to gain a membership card with the mob or the like. Also smaller things like constantly lying to your loved ones and friends can take their toll on you and your personality. Things like that might happen… do happen... and you find you don’t like the person you’ve become.”

“But it would be an alias doing all of that, won’t it?” one of the students asked.

Callen shifted in his chair, his arms crossing on the back of the chair, his chin on top. By shifting, he easily drew the attention back to himself. “Being undercover is not about _pretending_. It’s about _being_ that person. It’s about fitting in, being comfortable in your own skin by being a certain person. The deeper you have to go undercover, the more high value your target, the more you have to become your own alias. If you merely impersonate a certain persona or try working a cliché, you’re gonna be made faster than you can blink. Best case that means you end up being ignored by your mark, worst case it means a short trip to the closest desert or forest, digging your own shallow grave and ending in it with a bullet in your brain. But… becoming your own alias is also probably one of the greatest risk of undercover work because finding your way out of an alias can be difficult.”

“You make it sound depressing and not really like a good career choice.”

Sam laughed and shook his head, “he’s just morose like that sometimes,” he pointed at Callen. He ignored, the quiet “hey” his partner threw his way, and allowed his gaze to wander around the faces in front of him, “if you’re looking for an easy time, let me tell you undercover work isn’t it. As Callen said earlier; it isn’t for everyone and there’s no shame in admitting that. We could paint you stories of superheroes and incredible feats we did to get you hooked, but our opinion is that a healthy dose of respect and reality will help you more than stories of superheroes. You need to get an idea of what to expect so you can make an educated decision on whether or not you want to try undercover work.”

Callen stood and returned to his place beside Sam. “Fact is, you need to be somewhat of an adrenaline junkie, someone who can think quick on his or her feet - or as our Operations Manager calls it ‘flying by the seat of your pants’ - and you need some talent and skill to transform yourself into another person. There will always be personas you can pull of more easily than others - may that be due to your physique or due to it being a hidden personality trait within you. Sam for example often poses as the muscle, while I put in the brains.” He laughed, when this time Sam exclaimed a ‘hey’ and then proceeded to shove him aside. Knowing his partner as he did, he had expected it and therefore didn’t topple over as any other person would have who encountered the tidal force that was Sam Hanna.

Some chuckles went through the room and the somewhat dark and morose mood from before had been broken. “Alright, enough of that for the moment. How about some hands on training?” Callen asked, seeing somewhat eager smiles and nods. “Cool, let’s see what you guys got.”

Xxxxxxx

By the end of the day, they had managed to do quite a few demonstrations and had helped their students smoothing into and out of several aliases. Some had the talent for it while others didn’t seem comfortable in their new skins. Some of those would try further to prove something - and hopefully not get killed while trying - and some would stop chasing that particular job option as soon as the course was over.

They had mixed and matched students among each other and had mashed them together with either Sam or Callen to pull off a few scenarios. All of them had enjoyed the afternoon outside, practicing in real life circumstances instead of the grey walls of a seminar room.

Callen stretched once they were alone, enjoying the rays of the sun while lounging on the bench they had picked.

“Admit it,” he nudged Sam who was seated beside him.

“Admit what?”

Callen threw him a sideways glance and grinned before tilting his head back into the sun, his features relaxed and easy. “You enjoy it.”

“Absolutely not,” Sam argued back, a smile on his lips as well.

Callen laughed. It was the same old argument they had after each course they taught. To this day, Sam denied enjoying these courses while Callen continued to egg him on. Still, he was reasonably certain that the big softy who posed as his tough guy partner did indeed very much enjoy these days of teaching ‘Undercover 101’ - if only because he saw that Callen himself enjoyed it.

There was a short pause, an easy silence between them. “Hetty might like that one agent,” Sam stated.

“I’m sure she has him on file already,” Callen nodded, “you know she’s already aware of all the hopefuls we might come up with. She’s probably got the contract drawn up for him already, to be handed out if we support her opinion.”

Sam merely grunted in response. While Hetty always sent them away with the order to keep a lookout for some new undercover personnel, they all knew that it wasn’t the point for them teaching this course. It was more along the lines of providing them with an opportunity to enjoy some of what made them good at their job without the risk of their day-to-day terrorists breathing down their necks.

Callen didn’t do ‘down time’ very well and got bored easily. So this course provided him with something to do. While Sam enjoyed the odd vacation or two, he probably feared that the course might descend into mischief with Callen as a single instructor. By sticking together, Callen got a break that could be considered a vacation for him and Sam tagged along because he was always there to keep his partner out of trouble.

It worked for them.


End file.
